370 REAR-GUARD FIGHTING DURING THE CHANGE OF BASE.

®§oi

mm

mm

%■/-, f pY

i^jTjPri

t -f t i 'ij-

£\h

i|p^

" v ~

THE BATTLE OF SAVAGE’S STATION. FROM A SKETCH MADE AT THE TIME.

The 2500 .sick and wounded in the field-hospitals, and Union ordnance train. Other ordnance trains were settheir attendants, were left behind when the army fell on fire and were run back to Bottom’s bridge, whereback from Savage’s Station, during the night following they plunged into the Cliickahominy, as shown in thethe engagement. The explosion on the railway is of a picture on the next page.

General Slocum’s division was to be at Savage’s Station, in reserve. Tliencame Sumner’s corps and Heintzelman’s. Keyes’s corps was to cross theWhite Oak Swamp at once. Porter’s corps had already crossed the swamp,and was under orders to press forward to a position on the James River.

This new line was about two miles nearer the White Oak Bridge than theintrenched line in front of Fair Oaks and Golding’s farm (described above),and was nearly parallel. It was much shorter than the old line, its left reach-ing nearly to the swamp, and its right to the brink of the Cliickahominy hills.This second line was about three-quarters of a mile in front of Savage’s Sta-tion on the York River Railroad, which had been the depot for unloading andstoring supplies for the troops that held the old line, and where had beengathered in tents 2500 sick and wounded, most of the latter from Gaines’s Mill.

General Slocum’s and General Smith’s divisions both moved to their newpositions before daylight of Sunday, the 29th of June — the day of the fight-ing at Savage’s Station. As General Slocum’s division had suffered so severelyin the battle of Gaines’s Mill, and had not yet recovered from its exhaus-tion, General McClellan ordered it to cross White Oak Swamp at once, and itaccordingly left its position. Through some inadvertence I was not informed